The Canadian Tulip Festival

The 65th edition of The Canadian Tulip Festival has been spectacular. As Ottawa’s mayor, Jim Watson said, “The Canadian Tulip Festival, which celebrates a long-standing relationship and affinity between Canada and the Netherlands, is one of Canada’s best-known events and has grown to become the largest tulip festival in the world.”

The Canadian Tulip Festival Map

To help make it easy for you to visit all the sites at the Tulip Festival the red tulips indicate major sites, while the pink tulips are additional locations to see blooming tulips if you want to see more flowers.

Tulips on the Garden Promenade

Strolling around Major’s Hill park you can stroll through the large beds of tulips with the Parliament Buildings and National Gallery of Canada in the background. For my tour of the blooming tulips, I went to Parliament Hill, down Sussex to Rideau Hall, ending my tour in the Byward Market to see The Byward Market Tulip Festival display.

Year after year, my favorite Tulip Festival location is around Dows Lake. There are the largest beds of flowers with over 1km of 250,000 tulips including the Queen Juliana Gift Bed which has the Canada 150 tulips. If you can only go to one spot, this would be the location I’d pick as you spend the afternoon seeing so many gorgeous tulips, grab a snack at one of the food trucks or head to Preston Street to have a meal at one of the restaurants.

The Lansdowne Park Tulip Gallery

Entry to the Landsdown Park site requires a $15 ticket, where you can see the various programmed events or explore the floral displays from local florists, grab a tulip cookie from the Tulip Cafe, and walk through the painted tulips. When I first visited there wasn’t much going on, but I did enjoy viewing the modern flower arrangements. As there aren’t many tulips within Landsdowne Park Tulip Gallery if you want to find large flower beds, walk outside of the park by the Ottawa River and you will find some beautiful blooming tulips. Just outside of the Lansdowne Park, right by the Ottawa River, you can also find long beds of tulips as there isn’t many within Lansdowne Park Tulip Gallery.

For this location you will want to research ahead of time to see when there are programmed events that interest you and visit then, for example, there are dance events, yoga class, musicians, and what I’m most excited for the Tulipmania Fireworks which will be held on Victoria Day (tickets are required for the show).

I hope you have an amazing time exploring The Canadian Tulip Festival! This is one of my favorite times in Ottawa, with flowers blooming everywhere in the city I recommend that everyone visits Ottawa at least once during the Tulip Festival which takes place every May.